The grief diet

I met my first husband, Glenn, at a party I threw, where a mutual friend introduced us. The party was a success but also a disappointment because, at the end of the evening, I was alone.

When I sang the single girl's lament to my friends, one said, "I've got a guy for you." I vaguely remembered meeting Glenn. "He liked me?" I asked softly.

My friend said, "When I asked him what he thought of you, he said, 'I got the impression she's chubby.' And I told him, 'She's not chubby! She's busty!' And Glenn said, 'In that case, hook me up.'" I wasn't charmed by this anecdote. Still, I agreed to see Glenn again, if only to demonstrate that, in the hourglass that was my figure, most of the sand was on top. We started dating.

Glenn didn't know it, but he had stumbled into my life during a rare slender period. I was 26 and wore a size 6 dress. Thanks to a 5-mile-a-day running habit, my weight even dropped during our first year together.

Glenn and I got serious. When I looked at myself, I cringed at my flaws; when I looked into his eyes, I basked in love. Before our wedding ceremony in 1993, we were told by the rabbi to stand facing each other, holding hands. "Look at each other," the rabbi said. "Is this the person you want to grow old with? The person you vow to love from this day forward?" We said yes, and yes. It was one of the few times I saw Glenn cry. I wore my sister's wedding gown, which had to be taken out for me, but it fit well. Glenn fit me well, too.

As a newlywed, I rarely felt motivated to lace up the sneaks and go running—not with a loving husband waiting at home. When we went shopping, Glenn threw Doritos and cupcakes into the cart casually, guiltlessly. If I placed the junk food back on the shelf, Glenn would say, "If you don't like it, don't eat it." Spoken like a rube. Naturally, I ate more than he did from those crinkly packages. Embarrassed by my lack of willpower, I'd sneak a cookie here, a handful of chips there. Suddenly, the bag would be empty, and I'd have to replace it before Glenn realized he'd married a hypocrite. Luckily, he didn't notice that I'd shelved my skinny jeans.

Within two years, I was up 15 pounds. Then, at age 30, I got pregnant with our first daughter. I topped 200 pounds by my ninth month, a gain of 60. One of my most comfortable pieces of maternity clothing was a pink dress with black buttons, which made me look like a watermelon. I dieted after Maggie was born, losing weight but not enough. The net gain of the Maggie pregnancy was 20 pounds. With a full-time job and a husband in grad school, I lived on food I could eat with one hand while holding my new baby: pizza, dumplings, falafel.

When Maggie was 2, I got pregnant with Lucy. This time, I swam laps and avoided sweets. Nonetheless, the net gain of that pregnancy, once it was over and I shrank back to size, was another 5 pounds—a total of 40 pounds since my first date with Glenn. The night we met, I wore a size 6 backless minidress. Seven years later, at Lucy's first birthday party, I wore size 14 stretch jeans. Forty pounds and four sizes in seven years. I was overworked and overwhelmed, so I overate.

As a couple, Glenn and I were content. As an individual, I was tired of feeling fat. Although I thought about my size constantly, I did little to change it, except to dabble with trendy diets. Glenn was endlessly supportive. In fact, in seven years of marriage, he commented on my weight exactly twice: (1) One night, while watching me get undressed, he said, "When you gain weight, it shows in your legs." Besides being hurtful and insulting, Glenn's comment was untrue; my flab went straight to my belly. (2) At the end of my first pregnancy, I ordered a basket of sweet rolls with breakfast, and he said, "Take it easy, Val." I stormed out of the restaurant, demanding to know how dare he tell his pregnant wife what to eat? I was gigantic, sweaty and cursing. People on the street stared. He was embarrassed, more for me than himself. And that was the last I heard from him about my weight. Ever.

On New Year's Eve 1999, I vowed to get serious about losing weight. My girls deserved a healthy mom; Glenn deserved his slender bride, not the behemoth I'd become. It wasn't too late for me to improve myself.

I didn't know it then, but it was too late for Glenn. He thought stress was responsible for his severe back pain. He saw a doctor about it and went through a series of X-rays and MRIs. That June, he endured more tests, which confirmed the worst. The back pain was caused by a malignant metastasis on his spine. He also had brain lesions, too many to count. The diagnosis was lung cancer, stage IV. Glenn's doctors called the cancer a fluke, not anything he could have prevented, which provided zero comfort. In the summer, he had surgery, radiation and chemo. Nothing worked. He died in the fall, November 3, 2000. He was 34.

In the five months between diagnosis and death, Glenn dwindled to skeletal proportions. Watching the ravages of his disease was soul—and appetite—killing for me. I dropped 25 pounds, and two dress sizes, seemingly overnight, effortlessly.

And I was thrilled about it.

Yes, my husband was dying. I was on the verge of widowhood at 35. My daughters were losing their father. I was lonely, heartbroken, horrified by the toll illness took on Glenn and everyone else who had a front-row seat. And still, despite the sorrow, I found joy in my increasingly roomy clothing. With secret giddiness, I reached for a pair of red jeans I'd worn on our honeymoon. A few weeks post-diagnosis, I was able to get them over my hips. One month later, I could zip them—and breathe. Then they were loose. I smiled dreamily as I beheld my shrinking self in the mirror. Glenn had half a dozen painkillers and antidepressants to ease his suffering. Weight loss took the edge off of mine.

I kept this secret to myself. Given the grim reality that defined our days, who would understand? There was ordinary life: schlepping the kids to school, working, shopping, cleaning. And then there was cancer life: the blur of appointments, driving to chemo, explaining to Maggie why her dad had lost his hair, his energy, his appetite. I spent hours in bed with Glenn, feeding him when he could eat, reassuring him that he would beat the disease after every test revealed that the tumors were growing. We held on to hope, which, in this crisis, was another word for denial.

Glenn and I shrank at almost the same pace, and my weight loss was a reminder: "Be careful what you wish for." But it also occurred to me that my slimmer silhouette would be a huge plus when I started dating again. I imagined that I would fall in love again—I was only 35!—and this rosy vision helped me get through some grim moments.

Everyone noticed my bony face. My sister asked, "Have you stopped eating, too?" I waved away the comments, discouraged them. I didn't want to reveal myself as the monster who took pride in her appearance when her husband was dying.

The one person who didn't comment on my body was the man who knew it best. Granted, Glenn was grappling with larger issues than my stomach bulge. When he was awake, we talked about anything, no matter how small and insignificant. Glenn had always been a great gossip, which I appreciated in a man. We strolled around, me pushing him in the wheelchair, and gabbed about ugly clothes in shop windows, the price of contact lens solution, a restaurant closing. We talked about us and how great our life would be once he recovered. We never talked about loss of life. Or loss of weight.

My size simply didn't register with Glenn. Whatever he saw in me, it had nothing to do with my weight. If I had issued a test of his love by gaining all those pounds, I hadn't been paying close enough attention to his marks. Glenn passed the test over and over again, with flying colors. If I failed to see it then, I don't now.

My fantasies about a happy future were useful during Glenn's illness, but I had to shelve them after he died. No matter how much I'd prepared for it, his absence was shocking and huge. I spent night after night in misery, alone in my bedroom with the TV on. This was the reality of widowhood. I had the sneaking suspicion I'd find those lost pounds again, probably sooner than later. But I feared that true love was gone from my life forever. During some bleak hours, I feared that I'd hastily consumed my life's allotment, like scarfing cake without even tasting it. I swore to myself that, if I were gifted with love again, I'd take it slowly, savor every day. But, of course, there are some tastes that can't be nibbled. When love came again, in less time than I'd dared to hope, I gobbled it up like a starving person.